Fragmented Hourglass
by Clementive
Summary: At 2:17 am every day, time stops and they pretend they aren't ex-lovers turned enemies: vigilante and cop in a corrupted city. ShikaSaku. Dark!fic [Modern!AU with Mutant Powers] Rated M for non-graphic sexual content.
1. Daylight so violent

_**This is my entry for ShikaSaku Week Fall 2019. There will be 7 chapters, one for the first seven prompts of the event. This was oddly inspired by Gotham and its own set of corrupted cops.**_

_**Additional note: I'm having a hard time in many aspects of my life right now, so I wrote a little dark thing. Then, it became a longer darker thing. I'm not excusing my work, I'm just letting you know that I'm usually not THIS fucked-up.**_

_**Warning: rated M for non-graphic sexual content. Readers' discretion is advised. For a more explicit version, you can find this on AO3 under the same name. **_

_**Enjoy! :)**_

* * *

Day 1

prompt: daylight so violent

* * *

The alley is a dead end.

A hand cleaves the darkness from behind her, and it's him reaching for her, shadows and light spreading up his coat.

Shikamaru grips her head, fingers pressing into her scalp.

Sakura grips the front of his shirt and pushed him against the wall of one of the abandoned buildings.

They breathed in each other, stale coffee and cold cigarettes, pausing, feeling each other up, and the chilly fall breeze sinks in their skin carrying the scents of musk and dry leaves.

Sakura barely makes him out of the shadows.

His hand feels paper-thin, flaking, against her cheek, down her throat.

The stubble of his beard rubs against her cheek.

She grunts.

"Are you done?" Shikamaru rasps.

Sakura nods mutely, and she wonders for the nth time how much does he know about what she does? Does he know she follows him sometimes and heals the witnesses he incapacitates? Does he lurk in the shadows when she beats up corrupted men, politicians and police officers alike, men like him?

Maybe he knows her too well to wonder. He simply knows, the same way she knows him.

His palm pressed against her neck bringing her closer. Sakura hisses against his cracked lips.

"Not here," she mouths.

Shikamaru kisses her hard, and she tilts her head to deepen the kiss. He sucks on her bottom lip, his teeth teasing her.

Her heart exploded against her rib cage, thudding louder and louder, no release, no escape, no air. If the other vigilantes find her with a cop... She reacts with fear and excitement, knots tightening in the pit of her stomach.

Her fists shook, indiscriminately wrapped around his shirt and coat.

"Let's move," Sakura tries again, panting, but she moulds her body to his, welcoming the friction.

She's so lonely without him, it wrecks her. She is an echo chamber of his faintest touch, his lightest kiss.

'Do you miss being loved too?' she wonders and the pain is unbearable, stabbing blindly at vital points, and meeting bones, and sawing through them. Raw. Exsanguine. Skinned. This is how she feels all the time now; they don't love each other anymore.

"You think, it'd be troublesome?" Shikamaru asks languidly and licks the shell of her ear. "You and I, found here?"

"We're enemies," she doesn't say.

_He knows._

"We aren't meant to be anymore," she doesn't say.

_He knows. _

"One more touch and I could kill you," she doesn't say.

_He knows! Maybe he even wants her to try._

She shudders under his assaults, her pants deafening to her ears.

There are too many things Sakura doesn't say as Shikamaru gropes her breasts and kisses her neck, her head as silenced by dark excitement and blaring fear. It falls back, and somehow it's her back against the ice-cold wall now. Under her shirt, he pinches her nipples, his breath moist and hot against her neck. His tongue swirls around a spot he has previously sucked.

She reaches between them and finds his belt.

He stops her.

"Motel," Shikamaru grumbles, the word broken by his pants, and he releases her.

He sharply leaps back in the darkness.

A moment later, he lights a cigarette under a street lamp, hat crooked, obscuring his face, his coat billowing around him.

Sakura sucks in a breath, her racing mind and heart slowing without his touch. Her face flushed, she pulls her shirt back down. She runs a clumsy hand through her hair, looking around her.

The walls are covered in soot, windows and doors condemned by planks of gnarly wood stacked on top of one another with rusty bent nails. Dry leaves and rotting rats lie submerged by rain water between the buildings.

She steps over them.

'Don't look at the ground,' she reminds herself, gaping over the stench. 'This is where he buries his cadavers. Look up like he used to. Count the clouds, the stars, infinity. The ground is finite.'

The sky is moonless and starless. Blank.

She can't fleetingly see him anymore. Another blank.

Everything is blanked out between them and around them. What did she expect?

They meet as ghosts, dead lovers unable to move on, in a city of monsters.

She takes a tentative step away from the wall.

She shakes her head, then starts running towards the motel.

They rent one room, because they are too lazy to switch locations. Too smart to bother.

They will get caught, they know.

With her powers increasing the strength of her leg muscles, Sakura can beat him to the room, but the air is harsh against her skin, full of icy droplets of water. The fog is tight and thick around her, unmovable curtains, hiding and hindering her progress. She still makes detours, in case someone is following her.

_Too smart. _

_Too stupid. _

At last, Sakura glides against the roof of the motel, and runs low, her steps light. With her powers, she propels herself on the side of the parking lot, before sliding down the main pillar to reach the second floor. She lands in soft steps.

The door of room 217 is ajar.

217\. 2:17 am, the only time that is completely theirs.

The time they always come back to even if it lost its significance.

Sakura slips into the room, his arid smell of cold cigarettes crushing her.

The door slams shut behind her, the latch pulled sharply. Shikamaru presses her against the door, as he secured the door with its various locks.

Her head spins, with their frantic movements.

He pulls at her clothes, and she tugs at his belt. It whips out in an arc and crashes on the floor.

Sakura caresses him through his boxers.

"Fuck, woman," Shikamaru grunts and his hips jerk against her hands.

She cups him with one hand, then pulls his boxer down to touch him.

Shikamaru closes his eyes briefly, as she increases the pace. Her hands hold none of the softness she has when she heals people. They hold part of the violence that she has when she tracks his associates, and he comes like that, on her, on the bed.

He groans one last time, sweat sliding down his forehead.

She plays with him, panting in sync with him.

He kisses her soft, then hard, pulling her away from the soiled bed sheets by yanking her head. She moans, he grunts.

_They are meant to hurt each other. _

Sakura blinks back tears as he forces her to sit on the edge of the bed, before he sinks down in front of her.

Shikamaru spreads her legs, then throws them over his shoulders. He licks her fast, sloppily, and she pulls at his hair trying to guide him where she needs him. He doesn't care about pleasing her now.

He wants his name in her mouth as a hissed insult.

He wants his name in her mouth, and to suck and suck, then move away.

He wants a constant whimper in her mouth.

Always, always a fight between them.

_They are meant to fight each other. _

Sakura doesn't say his name. Not anymore.

Her thighs tightened around his neck, and Shikamaru gives in, his breathing slowing with the pressure, and his arousal awakening again.

Blood pounded at his temples.

"Yes," Sakura moans.

He rubs against the spot inside her that make her come undone.

Her legs spasm around him.

He watches her from between her legs as her face contort, her hips lifted off the bed. Her inner muscles tightened around his fingers and he smirks, pulling them out.

Sakura cries out as she comes, green eyes flashing, wildly searching for his.

"Asshole," she hisses.

Shikamaru tumbles on her, entering up without letting her calm down.

They thrust, not making eye contact, or with eyes tightly shut, never muttering each other's names. They try to forget who they are, who they are with.

They fuck, they don't make love.

They hang on flesh and rock bones, they don't caress each other.

They are liquid darkness, coiling each other in and out, projecting wild forms on the walls. Their moans and grunts increase, then they are silent and rolling away from each other.

It's 3:30 am.

An hourglass by the door is spilling the last of its sand.

The motel room is bathed in murky colours, diluted crawling shadows bouncing across the furniture with the headlights of each passing car.

She is one of them, a crawling shadow that stirs and stirs, looking for a way out.

And he lets her.

He has the gun, she has the healing hands, and he lets her go.

Sakura shifts, silently raising from the bed, her feet sliding across patches of darkness.

It's the drilling sound of her alarm that marks dusk. The hourglass is gleaming dully, one half empty and one half full.

_Time's up._

Shikamaru flips his lighter open and lights his cigarette. Breathing smoke and ashes, he stares at the ceiling.

"I'm leaving," she announces in a whisper.

"Why the hurry?" he drawls out, and he refuses to look at her.

She doesn't answer.

"Daylight only brings violence and trouble," he mutters, and pallid smoke rolls off his tongue. It licks her bare back as she bends down, her hands blindly searching the floor for her clothes.

Shikamaru drags on his cigarette, light-headed.

He wants to laugh. He wants to sit up and watch her, desperately clawing at the dirty rug of the motel. He wants so many things, but she only brings passivity out of him now.

She is troublesome.

She takes. She takes. Then, she gives. She gives.

But it has nothing to do with him.

She wants to save the city.

He watches it sink from the front lines.

"Maybe, one day, they'll make me catch you," Shikamaru muses out loud, and the hand holding his cigarette scratches the scar above his left eye. "You should save yourself now."

Embers flicker, then she reaches for the cigarette and pulls it out of his mouth.

"It's bad for your health."

"Can't heal cancer, then, huh?" he yawns.

The door of the motel room slams shut.

"Troublesome woman."

Shikamaru falls asleep shortly after, her sweat turning icy on the sheets wrapped around him, and he dreams of corruption. He drags moist reddening hands across dreams. He drags chains of guilt and sinking hope.

He drags sins.

He drags her, the past her. The loving past her that said his name when she came.

He shifts in the bed, rolling away from the door and reaching for another cigarette.

No, he never dreams about her.

She wants to save the city from men like him.

A villain.

* * *

_**Thanks for reading! :)**_

**_Reviews/faving/alert-ing are very much appreciated!_**


	2. Mud on our knees

_**Fucked-up and self-destructive Shikamaru is my favourite Shikamaru. Cool? Cool. **_

_**Enjoy, you guys! :D**_

* * *

Day 2

prompt: mud on our knees

* * *

"Finally, it's you," Sakura says flatly, and takes off her shirt, then her bra with automated movements. "Hurry up."

Shikamaru blinks.

_Who?_

He doesn't remember walking to the motel, climbing up the stairs, or pushing open the door of room 217.

He doesn't remember what he's doing there.

He's heavy with other memories that soak him through; a pistol kicking back in his palm, shadows that lurked out of a corpse, head open wide for the stars above.

Shikamaru still stands in the entrance of their motel room, and he sees it through earth and grime. He sees the room through a white-haired head eating another head, eating another head. And another. Another. Another.

The vision of the unmade bed, Sakura lying on top of the covers impatiently beckoning him, and the hourglass already flipped wobbles, blinks, flickers.

"Close the door," Sakura orders impatiently without looking at him, and the scent of her and the sound of tossed clothes barely reach him.

A head laughs sardonically in his mind, his first kill.

He didn't bury it deep enough, he thinks wildly.

Shikamaru touches his forehead drenched in cold sweat.

_What's real when you breed darkness and feed death?_

Behind him, the moon gleams in soft yellow, the shadows of the clouds obscuring its half.

"Don't just stand there!"

The head is howling now in his ears: "_MOTHERFUCKER!_" and it vibrates through him, the stench of death, the stretch of his corrupted life.

Shikamaru blinks slowly, looking at his hands. They don't feel like his when he moves his fingers. It feels like he's wearing thick gloves, and his hands are numb and dirty.

Briefly, he thinks he's holding it again, the talking head.

Sakura yanks him forward, and the weight in his hands brutally disappears.

"Close the door," she repeats louder through clenched teeth.

Shikamaru violently kicks it close, and mud smears the door.

The head finally shuts up.

Sakura grunts and walks back to the bed.

Shikamaru looks at the ceiling, his eyes narrowing over a dark trace of mould. He used to see patterns in stains and clouds.

He takes another step in the room.

"What are you doing?" Sakura hisses, her mouth set in grim line.

'I kill,' he dutifully replies internally.

He holds up his palms gesturing toward his coat. He starts laughing thinly.

"Are you high?"

He shakes his head.

_Can't she see?_

He brings the mud of a grave on the rug of their motel room.

He drips with mud and peels off dry leaves from his coat.

He buried a whistle-blower by the polluted river, the waves licking at his ankles with tongue of lead and swirling fuel. His tongue is steel in his mouth, barely fitting. He touches his throat. Did he tell her that?

_The head, the head! Everything always leads him back to that fucking head._

He carries death, even if it's their hour, the short time they have together.

He swallows hard.

Shikamaru heavily sits on the bed, and the springs protest loudly. He grits his teeth.

It's 2:28 am.

Time is pouring out of the hourglass.

Sakura moves quickly and pulls his coat off him. He quells a sharp cry of pain, his jaw clenches painfully. The textile sticks to the gash to his side. On the floor, the droplets dotted crimson, but he only sees darkness.

At least, everything is silent now.

"God," Sakura breathes out.

Her hands glow, palish purple, and he sees the mess. He feels her warmth spreading across his side. He wishes he had the strength to turn around and grab her hands. Shake her. Possess her.

He doesn't move.

He doesn't want to see this.

This mess.

This side of him.

This side of her.

"You're not a cop," he doesn't tell her.

_She doesn't care._

"You're not a doctor," he doesn't tell her.

_She doesn't care. _

"You're not mine," he doesn't tell her.

_She left him; she doesn't care! Maybe he wishes she would._

Shikamaru closes his eyes.

He doesn't tell her anything because he can see it all in the glow of her hands; the blood, the brain matter, sprayed, spread across him. He's a canvas of political schemes gone wrong. He's a canvas of all the things she fights, the things he has given up fighting.

Yet, her hands pulse, her power illuminating the room, and he feels stronger and stronger. His flesh mends itself with the sound of ripping paper.

Once the glow is gone, he reopens his eyes.

She presses down on his shoulders until he lies down.

"How do you feel?" she asks softly, and he reacts savagely, his eyes wide, his heart freezing, his heart hammering the back of his throat.

He flips her on the bed in a painful hold, eliciting a sharp gasp.

She watches him with widened eyes, her lips curled back in a snarl, her chest rising and falling quickly.

She doesn't hit him back.

"Don't," Shikamaru says stiffly through pants, steel and gunpowder, and the head is laughing again, his mandible popping out of the rest of its jaw. "I'm not someone in need of saving, alright? I'm not... Shit. I'm just not..." he grunts and instinctively feels his pockets for his pack of cigarettes.

His hands shake.

He doesn't deserve this.

He doesn't deserve her.

'Hate me. Hate me. HATE ME!' his mind pleads her.

Sakura sits up slowly, away from him, and she shakes her locks out of her face.

"I'm know what you are, don't worry," she whispers, and a ferocious unforgiving look flashes through her eyes. "You're a fucking coward."

She holds his hardening gaze.

He drops his pack of cigarettes on the floor.

They don't breath; they have beaten carved out chests, now misaligned. They used to love each other. The memory is hazy; he wants to forget. She can't.

The city corrupted him.

The city took him away from her.

If they still find each other, it's their flesh that remembers, their heads have moved on. They have fallen out of love.

It's in their heads; a talking immortal head broke them apart.

"And you're troublesome," he answers in his low slow characteristic voice.

They shift, clumsily, haltingly toward each other.

They kiss, devour each other, but there are blood and mud on their knees, blood and mud in their heads, burial sites. They are sliding quaking grounds.

They don't grip at each other.

They sink.

Nails and teeth, they tear at flesh.

'Forget that head', she thinks, the rest of her ringing empty.

'Please, please, make him shut up', he thinks, more shadow than man.

They sink on the bed.

Mouldy bed sheets cling to their skin, but they barely feel them. When will their fall stop? The pit is bottomless.

They feel dirty, the woman who tries too much, and the man who has given up long ago. There are imaginary caking dust and soil in each crease of their skin.

When will it stop? This. Them. The passing of time that viciously drags them back and back.

"It's disgusting," Sakura bit his lip, but rolled her hips to meet his. "We're fucked up."

'Then why does it feel so good?' Shikamaru growls inwardly.

"Shut up, troublesome woman!" he hisses aloud, and they are on their knees pushing against each other. He is behind her, his hands on her hips forcing her to bend over.

They fight each other, halfheartedly, bed sheets slide and snap and pool between them. They gasp. They pant.

Shikamaru presses against her entrance with a new angle, and she moves back against him, moaning.

The muddied palish sky draws their skin darker as they thrust.

Their knees hurt.

They lie down, switching positions without a word.

They pile themselves on top of each other, barely moving at first. She cries gritting her teeth, her mouth opening over comfort words she used to tell him.

'_Why aren't you more careful? Please, please, stop strategizing without thinking about your safety._'

He's louder, trying to bury her, her and her contorted face that show how much she still cares.

He tries, he tries.

He grunts. He insults. He shouts half-formed sentences, sentences he had already told her when she walked out on him.

"Saviour complex," Shikamaru pants and angles himself, so he can finally come and leave. This time, he should be the one leaving. "You've a fucking troublesome saviour complex."

She gasps, her nails digging into his arms. Her hips heave to meet his, faster, harder.

"I just want to leave," he grumbles with each thrust, and he chokes on his thickening saliva and tears that won't come.

They come almost simultaneously, her sleek and spasming around him.

Shikamaru punches the pillow by her head.

"Mutants kill us! Mutants like you... So, I killed him. How can you be angry I killed him? This is how it works with you mutants. You're out of control. You kill. You kill. You're not an exception. You're the rule," Shikamaru shouts, his voice hoarse, as he slows down.

She looks at him with glassy eyes, her mouth violently red and parted.

He roughly slips out of her.

She sits up.

_If she hits him back, she kills him._

"At least, you could never hate me as much as you hate yourself," she replies quietly.

When Sakura stands up, her steps make the room tremble. She grabs her clothes and dresses as she approaches the door, never once pausing.

"Fuck you," she adds, her voice still a whisper, her hand on the knob.

It's 3:21am, and the door slams with too much strength.

The hourglass fragments a little, moist soil smeared across it.

Shikamaru stares the ceiling, his skin on fire, thin lines of blood running across his body.

If only she would bury him.

* * *

_**I've this headcanon where Shikamaru becomes a villain and cold-hearted after he kills Hidan. huehuehue I mean, that scene was epic, but it was still insanely cruel. **_

_**Anyway. **_

_**Thanks for your support and taking the time to review/alert/fav my story!**_


	3. And we dream in purples

_**Here we go again! ^_^**_

* * *

Day 3

prompt: and we dreamed in purples

* * *

They dream and jolt awake, their hands between each other's legs, pressing, but unfeeling.

They are spread sweaty limbs across soiled bed sheets, disarticulated puppets.

They stirred in unison, in and out of nightmares and reality.

The room stinks.

They have already fucked twice, absently, without coming, just licking and sucking and biting and dying. Outside, the moon is extinguished by thick immobile clouds.

Shikamaru thinks he's drowning in blood.

He thinks the only colour he can see in his world is red. The rest is black. He's a machine, he's a killer, what else is he supposed to see?

_Purple. Her._

He doesn't know what she thinks.

"Another round?" he asks groggily.

"You're not even hard," Sakura replies tiredly, her head turned away from him.

He rubs his eyes. Nothing changes; his world is monochromatic. Shades of red rule him. The pink curls between her legs, her silky hair spread across his shoulder.

Blood.

Or is he drowning in her?

She plays with her own breasts, her eyes half-closed.

"I had this plan," Shikamaru says vaguely, his eyes on the screeching shuddering ceiling fan. "I always have this plan... There's no dead in my plan, but things just don't follow what I see anymore. It's not a chess game. Maybe never was."

His hand feels the mattress for his coat. He takes out a crumbled pack of cigarettes. He tuts and lazily throws the empty pack toward the garbage can.

It misses.

Shikamaru falls back on the bed, and it aggressively squeaks under his weight.

His hand feels for her hand, stopping her movements. He cups her small breast and pinches her nipple, earning a small gasp for her.

"Sometimes I forget," he mutters and kisses the side of her breast. She shudders. "No one is brought back if a pawn reaches a certain place on the battlefield. People just die."

Sakura reluctantly lets him hold her, her hands slowly sinking into his hair.

Dull waves of pleasure travels down her spine when his mouth closes around her nipple.

She sighs, arching her back and holding him in place.

His hand slides down her abdomen, resting on her hipbone.

He releases her, glancing up at her drawn face. Her skin gleams ghostly white in the darkness. Her mouth is red, puckered. White, black, and red. No purple.

"I just wanted to bring back Asuma," he says to himself, and he kisses her collarbone.

She freezes against him.

He lazily sucks on the thin skin of her neck.

He moves like a broken machine with wires hanging out of its control panel; he pulls her to his chest, his hand caressing her hair like he still loves her. Like he still can. Like this is his default setting and nothing he does can erase it.

He breathes her in, holds her tighter.

She parts for him even if she can't forgive him.

She closes her eyes, her nails drawing half-moon imprints on his back, as he enters her again.

'What about me? Do you want to bring me back?' she silences these angry words inside her. His thrusts ignite her.

Finally, she feels him.

Finally, she moans, and the thick fog between their bodies is lifting.

Finally, her legs curl around his waist.

Slices of the man she used to love are rare, but they do pierce through, tortured echoes, haunting words.

She can't resist them.

Shikamaru used to cry and dry-heave when he needed to shoot a suspect. He used to smoke cigarette after cigarette on the porch of their house, his reddened eyes, unseeing. Those times, she lost him for a bit, but she never minded.

He came back to her. Hours or days later, he always found his way back to her.

Her sides hurt for longing.

Their release is quiet, his forehead pressed against hers.

He doesn't move, his eyes closed, his pants hot against her cheek.

It's a toxic embrace, she can't help but think.

He smells of cigarettes.

There's the smell of decay entrapped in his joints.

She can't breathe in his embrace. Between them are shards of an emptying hourglass; their time is running out. Their love is gone.

"I saved him," she admits quietly and gulps, waiting for his reaction. "The man you chased today. I followed you, and I saved him."

She builds up her strength.

"Sounds troublesome," he answers and squeezes her hand above his heart.

'_He already knew_,' Sakura realizes, alarmed. '_He always knows too much._'

She looks up at him, searching for more echoes, more _him_.

'_You broke my heart, now give it back._'

Shikamaru lowers his face to hers.

They kiss like it's the first time, clumsily, hungrily. They kiss like it's the last time, demanding, raw, impatient, more teeth than tongue.

There is an echo in his chest that chills her and sets her ablaze at once. It evokes another timeline, a tangled web of memories. Faintly, he says it again against her lips. _Her name_.

"No," she pushes him back.

She can't think about turn it back, the hourglass. She can't think about dusting off its fragments, setting it, the sand leaking through, and the cracks fused back together.

"No," she repeats icily.

"No?" he repeats slowly, his mouth barely moving.

His eyes darken, holding hers.

"Not like this," she shakes her head.

_There's no going back. _

Months ago, he made his choice, and it wasn't her.

Months ago, he sat at the kitchen table and told her: '_I buried a head in the garden._'

"Whatever," Shikamaru says tonelessly, and his arms are loose around her.

She disentangles herself from him.

He reaches for the night table and opens the drawer to look for another package of cigarettes.

He needs one.

He needs her.

_Not like this. _

She is right.

_Not like this. _

_I buried a head in the garden._

Shikamaru lights his cigarette, one hand behind his head.

His profile is rigid, his face still angled toward the ceiling, unmoving. She moves a hand up his chest for better support. His heartbeat pulses faintly under her fingers.

She takes his pulse; there are times she wonders whether he is still alive.

She shakes him.

'_Are you still in there, Shikamaru?_' Sakura yells inwardly, and it's an unpronounceable incantation for the dead.

"What?" he drawls out, his lips almost curled back in a snarl.

She pauses, staring, waiting, crumbling.

His skin is ashen under her hands.

"Is there nothing you want to save?"

"No."

He lets his cigarette fall in the ashtray, and it keeps burning, its smoke swirling up over them.

They lie side-by-side, readjusting their bodies, without touching, drifting in and out of shaky sleep.

Dream or reality?

Her hair is fanned out around her. He still wears his in a high ponytail.

Purple of red?

Later, she shakes him again, one finger to his jugular.

"I just wanna smoke in peace, so stop," Shikamaru mumbles, but there are only ashes and dissipating smoke when he reaches for the ashtray.

He grunts and lights another cigarette.

She glances at him. He still uses the silver lighter of his dead mentor.

He is her origin story, but this is his; a dead mentor and a mutant Shikamaru buried in their garden.

_The garden still haunts him. _

_The head still talks to him. _

What about her?

He flips the lighter back on the bed when he is done lighting his second cigarette.

Smoke raises around them, hanging low, suffocating and crooked.

"They say if you dream in purple, it means you have aspirations," she says suddenly and lowers herself to his chest, her naked chest pressed against his.

'_Give me something... Anything!_' she pleads inwardly.

"I dream in black," he lies, and he blows the smoke away from her.

_She is purple. When she heals. When she fights._

He can't dream about her, he almost shouts.

Their eyes met in the darkness, her fingers still pressed against his pulse.

She waits, her wide eyes searching his face shrouded in shadows.

"Why don't you want to come back to me?" Sakura asks quietly, and something inside her breaks.

She already knows.

She knows him too well.

She knows him and his brain and his fingers tainted by nicotine, and he just can't step out the shadows prowling around him.

Power.

He likes power too much.

He gave her up, so he could avenge his mentor, and he has lost his way.

He buried a man in their garden. He could never cross the porch again. Or so it goes.

He still hears echoes of laughter, the sound of tearing flesh, a tumbling head. He buried the head with his hands. Or so it goes.

There's no room for her in his story.

"Just come clean. Do your time, don't let them have this much power over you," her words are glass, grains of sand, they quiver, carried away, never taking root between them.

"I can't," he rasps and inhales more smoke. "I'm not sure I even want to. I'm used to this."

'_I'm used to you hating me._'

'_I'm used to me hating me._'

She shakes her head, more and more violently, tears raising painfully to her eyes.

"Coward," she breathes out, and her hand stops feeling for his pulse.

It's 3:08am.

The door slams shut, shaking in its hinges with her strength. It replays the day before, and the day before, and the day before, and he's drifting across time and space.

The walls vibrate.

A man yells below their room.

The hourglass severs all the way to its core.

Sand leaks out.

He doesn't stop it.

He doesn't stop her, even if he dreams in purples.

* * *

_**Thanks for reading!**_

_**Maybe I'll skip posting tomorrow since next chapter is pretty graphic and I'm not sure how I can 'tame' it down a little to post it here... I'll see...**_

_**Please take the time to let me know what you thought if you can! :D**_


	4. Rust between my teeth and I still smile

_**Sorry I skipped yesterday, but I needed a little break. :P**_

* * *

Day 4

prompt: rust between my teeth and I still smile

* * *

_The alley is a bear trap, buildings towering over her._

Sakura punches the wall above the shadow's head. Her ligaments, her muscles strain, and she pants low, even prowling lower. She avoids a knife that blinks into the night, silver claws that aim at her throat, at her heart.

She tastes the blood flooding her mouth.

Sakura reaches forward, following the knife with her eyes, then turns to kick it out of the assailants hands. He yelps, holding on his broken hand. She catches the knife between two fingers.

There are ten more of them, circling her.

Sakura throws the knife in someone's chest. He stumbles back, gaping, his shirt drenched in blood, moonlight-speckled.

Dead.

He falls, head first, and someone else advances toward her, keeping his distance before he unsheathes his sword.

Its curve glistens.

Heaving loudly, Sakura punches the ground, the air, and the bricks rattle, fall off, and her bones snap, slightly bent, like steel.

The city shakes, undergrounds gutted open, more masked men joining in the fight.

_The trap hasn't snapped over her ankle. Yet._

She is drenched in weariness, angry at herself for taking the bait, angry at the stars, the moon, the gush of the wind—all that she doesn't control and eat her alive.

She seethes burning charcoal every time her fists connect with bricks, earth, flesh. Her skin violently gleams, in shades of purples, and she's bottled up anger, simmering hatred. She's stuffed with too many emotions and memories, a scarecrow that stands vigil over a city that is betrayed over and over again.

'Did he betray me?' she asks herself, her thoughts raw and sore.

She grips a wrist and throws a body across from the convoy. It arcs in the air, then dents the convoy.

Her glow itches, uncontrollable, destructive.

She overflows, more power surging to her clenched fists.

She's gutted out of hope, cheated off it.

She doesn't hold back.

The convoy's doors are still open, and there's nothing inside.

_There was supposed to be money in the convoy._

_There was supposed to be one or two guards. _

_How could she have been so stupid?_

Sakura breaks the rhythm of the fight, blocking and kicking and punching back, until half of the men are lying about, twisted limbs under them. Plaster and powder rise thickly around her, shielding her from sight.

She glows dimmer, power vacillating.

She runs.

She glistens, sweat pouring down her face.

She runs toward him.

'It's a trap,' a voice repeats in her head. 'It's a trap.'

She runs faster, jumping from roof to roof, and the wind howls sourly like death against her skin.

* * *

Shikamaru is sitting on the bed in the darkness, smoking.

His face is carved out of miserable flickers of ashes, masked by smoke. Yet, his lower face shines dully, red and orange from the tip of his cigarette.

She can't read him.

Silence stretches, taut to a breaking point.

The thin febrile curtains are drawn over the window.

"You need to leave," he finally says through smoke.

He stands up and walks toward her, reaching up to her face.

She steps back.

His hand drops back to his side.

"I'm not leaving."

"That's stupid," Shikamaru hisses in the same breath.

"Did you send them?"

"That was a lousy-"

"Answer me!" she shouts.

A pause.

A breath.

A break.

"Do I need to?" he asks quietly.

Open wounds shape him, a carcass that moves because it is moved. Because it is handed a gun and told to shoot, shoot and shoot again. 'Third time's a charm,' he has been told.

_His body count is 76. _

She throws him on the bed, anger swirling inside her, choking her. She curls her fists back. The more she destroys, the more the itch is back, demanding more chaos, more splinters, more pieces of bricks that chase birds and peace alike.

'You're not the exception, you're the rule,' he said.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe she was meant to destroy.

_No._

"You..." Sakura spits venomously, shaking her head vigorously, lost. "You poison our city with your fucking goons." she shoves a finger on his chest, watching him flinch back, his cigarette rolling to her feet. "You poison us," she adds her voice unstable, broken, and he falls back on the bed.

The head of bed knocks back against the wall.

"You're poison."

Sakura pants, staring down at him.

_This is the rule for cops in the city._

She grips the front of his shirt and yanks him back up, her face inches from him. His face is placid, but she still searches across the shadows etched in his skin, the ink of his eyes.

"Why aren't you fighting me?" Sakura bristles and shakes him.

He's not wounded.

Why isn't he fighting? Why isn't her sidekick, her partner?

Why is this all that's left of them: 2:17am, a decaying timestamp, and a motel room that stinks of mould and rot.

His eyes are half-closed.

"Sounds troublesome."

'I'm glad you survived.'

She flinches away, turns away. Away. Away!

She presses her palm to the door.

"You need to leave town," he repeats and yawns.

Silently, she takes off her clothes.

He sighs.

He pulls at his collar.

"You need-"

"I'm not going without a fight," she snaps, her eyes flashing.

She pins him against the bed, straddling him, as she removes the rest of his clothing.

"Unlike you, I fight," she adds, and her skin burns him.

She barely kisses him before she flops backward.

Their relationship is upside down, disjointed, love hung inside out.

_Hatred. _

They are upside down, mentally, physically, head between legs, interlocked.

Her hands are iron grips around his thighs, her mouth hot while his is lazy over her folds.

He can't wiggle.

He can't change the angle.

Faintly, he wonders if she remembers that he enjoys feeling her strength, being cornered, being pressed down on a mattress, completely at her mercy.

Maybe she remembers the clouds and the bright blue sky he glanced up at. He wanted to be carried away like a cloud, he used to say. He wanted tempests and her punches to force him forward.

The day he stopped looking at the clouds was the day he dug into the ground, covered in blood.

_He never fought for her, for them._

_He never changed._

Sakura swirls her tongue around him, humming, and the vibrations, the pressure of her lips almost make him come.

He growls against her, pleasure relentlessly building up in the pit of his stomach.

He can barely think straight.

He weakly presses his tongue against her spasming walls.

Her lips tightened around the head, her suction increasing.

He curses, something inside of him clenching, then releasing.

She avoids his semen at the last moment, and he hisses at the loss of her warmth around him.

She sits down on his chest, sleek, on fire, her back to him. She merely looks at the mess between his legs.

"We're a mess," she says flatly, and wipes at her mouth.

He tries to shove her.

"You didn't come," he rasps with difficulty. "Come back here."

He pinches the skin of her hips.

She doesn't move.

'Is this all there is?' she wonders, and the back of her eyes burns.

She sees double, troubled.

Shikamaru sighs.

He still tastes her on his tongue, metal and rust, etched in his gum. There's a bullet in his gun that is supposed to drill through her skull.

"Don't be troublesome," he grumbles, but his body is tensed with anticipation.

She turns back to him slowly, her head cocked to the side, her pale eyes dead.

"I don't need you to come."

He grumbles a curse and reaches across him for his pack of cigarettes.

Swiftly, she turns completely toward him, and the sole of her left foot immobilizes his right wrist before he could reach for it.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks quietly, his eyes darkening.

She spreads her legs and put her right foot on his left arm, her strength nailing it in place. With both his arms now pinned to his sides, he watches her wet pink curls part for her own fingers.

He clenches his jaw until his cheek twitches painfully.

She throws her head back, moaning, as she fingers herself still sitting on his chest.

Her thoughts are wild and cold and hurt as she plays with herself.

He grunts when she moans.

He gasps when she gasps.

'Am I a stray or a woman to you?' she needs to know, her throat exposed, her head thrown back. 'Are you even here with me? Why? WHY DIDN'T YOU FIGHT FOR US?'

The pressure building in her core is anger, an inflating tempest. If she doesn't need him, she should stop meeting him. Change city, change name, start over, forget about heads buried in gardens. Forget him.

_She should stop. _

_She should stop! _

'Am I your stray because I come back and let you pat me?' she wants to shout and punch the earth until it's cracked, smoking and eroding. Like them. 'You feed me in caresses, but what I am to you? I won't say your name and you won't say mine. So, who are we to each other?'

_I don't need you. _

_But I needed you!_

She shudders as she comes. Finally, her hand slips and her chest heaves, but there is no fire anymore.

Maybe there never was.

She feels heavy with her weary bones, her empty heart.

Shikamaru is still watching her, eyes gleaming, his face shrouded in shadows and eaten by longing.

"See?" she mutters and smears her juices on his chest. She slaps it. Once, twice, thrice. His skin is red, but he doesn't flinch. She pants, her eyes glistering as she glares down at him. "No need for you," she adds quietly.

'I don't need you to fight for me anymore,' she adds silently and the echo of her words ravages her.

She releases him and sits up on the edge of the bed.

Shikamaru only smiles at her, at once content and sad, when she turns her back to him. Their relationship sours, still etching rust in his mouth.

"You still need to leave, troublesome woman," he shouts after her.

His body hurts with the weight of her gone.

"I know what I need to do," she replies coldly through the closed door.

He smiles wider.

She heads toward the bathroom, something she hasn't done in a long time.

She knows to keep her guards up.

'Good,' he thinks.

She locks the door behind her.

_Good._

He smiles wider and wider, crooked and pained.

He is ripped apart, but she can't heal him; he's upside down, inside out, decaying teeth and rotten lips pressed to his ear, whispering: _'I've no regrets. __That teacher of yours? __He wept like a bitch. Just like you now._'

Long after she's gone, he notices that the hourglass is gone.

_Good. _

Now, he's alone with the talking head.

Now, she's safe.

* * *

_**Hope you enjoyed it! Please take the time to let me know what you thought if you can!**_


	5. My burdens to your feet

_**There are no sexy times, this time. :)**_

* * *

Day 5

prompt: my burdens to your feet

* * *

'It's a trap.'

The thought crawls in his mind, sluggish, yet consuming him whole. The back of his prickled. His hand slows momentarily over the page of his report. Ink drips, blots forming.

He recognizes the chess board.

The decided steps crossing the board, the loaded gazes, shoulders frozen, empty smiles stretching over silence. Chairs roll back, screeching wheels, reports are filed and prisoners are processed. Somehow, every sound, every movement is wrong.

The police station is artificial, blotted lights, the officers voices quieter than usual.

There's a blow coming.

Captain Sasori Sabaku crosses the rows of his detectives' desks, one hand in his pockets. With disinterest, he surveys the room. He's a tall man of worn colours and awkward movements. He walks as if strings are holding him up in immoderately slow grace.

"Guess who I caught," Sasori murmurs, his face is flecked by red dust.

He sits on the corner of his desk, his clothes wrinkled, petrified and drenched in soil and rain. He watches Shikamaru, expressionless. He haltingly moves his uncomfortable and unnatural posture carefully rearranged.

"Who, sir?" Shikamaru says placidly, watching him out the corner of his eyes.

He is alert, but soaked in icy terror. It sticks to his movements, to the way he leans back, and drawls out his answer.

"You don't know," Sasori states simply, and his reaction is delayed.

Shikamaru quickly thinks over his next moves. _Deny, deny, deny._ They taught him that when he joined the force; avoid, deny, but only if you leave no trace. Sasori cocks his head to the side, his neck twisted, tensed. His slim fingers clumsily pick at cigarette buds overflowing the ashtray.

His pale brown gaze never leaves Shikamaru.

Even his blinks are slow.

"I thought I ordered to guess, Nara," Sasori replies, but his voice remains low.

"With all due respect, sir. That would be troublesome. There are many people to arrest in the city, and they all have approximately the same probability of getting caught. But I'm sure, congratulations are in order: Congratulation, sir."

They stare at each other, half-frozen, holding up to their cards, holding up to their traps.

"It's your favourite vigilante," Sasori breathes out in a chastising tone. "I'm disappointed you don't know."

Sasori stands up, his body disarticulated, unfolding like a hand fan.

Shikamaru's mouth floods with the sand of the fragmented hourglass. He sinks, but he's bottomless, worn out, strung upward only by the game.

_She was supposed to be out of town. Gone forever. _

"I've a favourite?" Shikamaru manages to say.

Sasori leans in, inches by inches, his placid face glowing with the yellow light, and bruises run the side of his face.

"Does she know you've other favourites?" Sasori hisses and his jaw clenches and twitches painfully. The corner of his lips is crusted in blood. "Hm. She did seem angry..."

Shikamaru doesn't bolt uptight as he is expected to.

He doesn't throw back his chair.

He doesn't punch his captain.

He hasn't fought in a long time.

He stays still and reads the chess board, forward, backward, like he has done so many times before. He reads and reads, and thinks through the motions, imaging words and actions he knows he won't do because they are all things she would have done. And he's a coward, he's a killer, and he has already let her go.

'It's a trap,' he frowns.

If she fooled him...

Then, what?_ Then, what? _

How can he move, breathe or survive if she isn't safe?

"I just want us to be on the same page, Nara," Sasori adds, and the tip of his fingers brushes the pile of files to Shikamaru's right. "If the Healer escapes, I'll take a walk in your garden and find Hidan's head. Then, you both get the noose. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," he drawls out as the corpse that bought his desk, his place on the force, with rage and a head.

Sasori walks away stiffly, inhuman, in pain.

His mouth fills more heavily with sand, and Shikamaru can't swallow.

Asuma's ghost presses down. He was supposed to become more than this corpse, more than this grieving murderer who can't find peace. Love. Light.

He has lost it all.

He keeps writing his reports, aware of his colleagues' gazes, and there's the pressure of time on his tongue. They made big circles around his desk. Time skips, speeds forward, until the shadows are thick and elongated and he's one of the few ones still there.

_Time's up._

Shikamaru looks up from his desk, and closes the lamp on his desk.

He lights a cigarette, half-closed eyes drifting with the smoke snaking out of his mouth.

He was always more comfortable in the shadows.

He wears the darkness like ink and shield when he silently walks toward the reinforced cells where they keep the mutants.

Her back is to him, her head raised toward the small window. Its bars spread solid lines across the icy room, stroked by moonlight.

_The Healer. _

_Sakura._

She turns slowly, and her eyes narrow, blindly following the smoke. The rest of him, she can't see.

He speaks to the darkness, her eyes set aflame by the glow of his cigarette.

"You're so fucking..." Shikamaru growls and shakes his head. "Self-righteous. You're too self-righteous."

She passes her hands through the bars, and he catches a glimpse of gold, before he hears it tinkle against the metal.

His heart stops.

Her eyes bore through him.

"Just this once help me," she says quietly. "Just this once do something..."

She holds up her hand.

'Just this once help the city,' she means, even if she's trying to use him, their past, his ring. She speaks like she's summoning a ghost. She is drawn in soft light and harsh shadows, waiting and waiting. Hasn't she waited for him enough?

Can't she tell he's a shell, a shadow, both feet resolutely out of reach?

He's past redemption. He walks with the weight of a head in his arms, slugging through a soul that won't let him rest.

There's no room for her.

He looks away from her stretched out palm.

It's her burdens, the city's burdens at his feet, and he will walk away. A thousand times, he will walk away.

"My hands are tied," he said low, his jaw clenched.

Her smile perishes on her lips, her face emptying from emotions. Her hands curl back around her bars.

"That's me," she says with a brittle voice.

Shikamaru shrugs and lights a new cigarette.

"What are you doing here then if you aren't going to help me? You want me to confess to cleaning up after you and the other pigs, huh? Want to feel a little self-righteous too?" her voice booms, and she gestures around her, her ring flashing, catching, trapping the light. He doesn't look at her, he looks at it. "Or are you here for a quick fuck?"

"Lower your goddamn voice, woman."

"Why?" Sakura demands and grits her teeth. "Why?" she repeats.

He smokes more.

He shrugs more.

He can't save her and condemn himself. He needed to make sure.

"You're spending the night here," he says flatly. "Tomorrow, you'll head to Reinforced Prison for people like you."

He walks away.

"Hey!"

She throws the ring at him. It dents the wall, the floor. She always had too much strength. He pauses, his palms moist, as he glances down at the ring. It reflects nothing in the darkness.

Her pants fill the room.

"I've never imagined you'll be the villain in my story," she says and laughs dully.

"SHUT UP, WOMAN!" he roars.

And he wears the face of the man who buried too many cadavers to count.

Her heart tumbles over a beat.

"I've told you, Shikamaru..." she smiles coldly. "I'm not leaving without a fight."

His eyes widen ever so slowly.

Swiftly, Sakura grips the lock and yanks it off.

Her eyes gleam purple, the colour of his nightmares and her aspirations.

He won't avoid her fists, he thinks at peace, but she brushes past him, blurry lines, black lines rippling over her skin.

Somehow, it's worse that he isn't her goal.

Somehow, it's worse that he turns his head, following her movements as she throws her weight back in her fists.

Somehow, it's worse that she punches the ground of the police station.

'So, this was the trap,' he thinks dully and smirks.

"SHANNARO!"

The floor gives up under him.

He stumbles backward.

There are yells and pain and blood, and everything collapses. Around him. In him. The air rubs savagely against his skin, gushes of wind and rain slicing through him.

_He can't breathe. _

Away, sirens shrill.

He raises his head, his lungs filling with smoke and dust and dirt.

_He can't breathe._

There's a hole in the roof, and the smug infiltrates the police station.

For once, the sky appears closer.

His fingers curl over the ring, engraved with _2h17 onward and forever_. Their first time, their last time.

He closes his eyes.

She took back the hourglass, returned his ring... Now, he's the one fragmenting, breathless, hopeless.

A defeated villain.

He blacks out.

* * *

_**Thanks for the support! I appreciate it a lot!**_


	6. Their ending is betrayal

I decided to combine the last two prompts, because it read more organic this way, so this is the final chapter.

Enjoy! :D

* * *

Days 6 & 7

prompts: the stars are laughing & tomorrow will betray us

* * *

Shikamaru walks back to the past, back to the garden and the hole in its hedge. He is hunched back, pushing through the cracking leaves, alcohol weighing down his limbs.

Branches whip back at him.

He doesn't bother to shield his face.

Dry leaves and grass snap under the sole of his boots, moist soil sucking him in.

Shikamaru walks with a shovel and a bottle of whiskey, deeper and deeper in the woods, until the moon is shrouded, the top of the trees imprisoning all shadows.

And there is no witness, astral or human.

He puffs, white smoke surrounding his mouth and nostrils, and he's running out of breath, out of life. He has been holding his breath for a month since Sakura escaped. Sweat pearls down his temples.

A shudder runs down his spine, and he's broken.

He's a ghost, the words of the head buzz in his ears.

It counts his dragging steps. _5 steps left to the marked tree. 15 steps straight, then follow the river for 17 steps. _

_"All of this to see me. Well, asshole, you're pathetic,"_ the head purrs.

Shikamaru is almost drunk, his mind sluggish over ruins. The amber liquid in the bottle splashes wildly, licking each side. His lighter burns a whole in his pockets, in his soul, and it clicks against his police badge.

He stops.

His fingers graze the last mark engraved on the bark of a tree.

"_Almost there, fucker. 10 steps to your right,_" the head's laughter leaks through each word, deforming them in a crescendo chant.

Shikamaru drops the shovel and the whisky bottle on the ground. It rolls away from him, half-fragmented, its content dripping over the tomb.

One of the tree is unearthed over it, and he sits on the crooked branches.

He smokes and murmurs his mentor's name.

He squints through the darkness, a shuddering light dances in his old house.

A couple he has never met now lives there. Old garden, old house, old him. He's bent, his elbows on his thighs. He has aged prematurely, imprisoned in the past, hanging on strips of fight and fright responses.

Shikamaru softly rambles about the only fight he has ever won.

"_Is this your fucking confession? Now?! You must be shitting me!_" the head yells from below him.

Shikamaru closes his eyes, scratching his cheek with the hand holding his cigarette.

He remembers the weight of a cocked pistol that never went off.

The suffocating scent of gasoline, the chilling overly sweet touch of revenge.

The machete that sawed and sawed, detaching Hidan's head.

He kicked it down a hole.

He buried it.

Maybe his own corpse is down there too.

"_Oi! Answer me! __I'm bored! Entertain me, asshole!_"

His bones creak, the leaves in the oak tree rustling above him even if he stands still.

He is a haggard man, and the head speaks clearly.

"_You're like me_," it sing-songs. "_Is that what you're thinking about? You're finally like me, you fucking dickhead. I killed for fun. You had fun, killing me, yeah? Well, trying to. __I'm still here, motherfucker!_"

It drips like blood, viscous and unstoppable: _guilt, guilt, guilt_. Shikamaru is dotted by guilt, worms of regrets devouring him alive. _Guilt, guilt, guilt_. It still falls bit by bit, nourishing the head. What else is there?

He spins the lighter in his hand.

Asuma. Sakura. They are all gone now.

Shikamaru lights another cigarette, and the gesture alone soothes him.

"_Are you crying, cunt?_" the head yells incoherently.

"Shut up, you're dead," Shikamaru hisses.

He lights his third cigarette. Waiting. Waiting.

His vision swims along with the ground. Maybe Hidan is finally piercing it through?

Shikamaru laughs quietly.

"_Am I? I'm immortal. I live on in your fucking twisted head. A head for a head, get it, motherfucker?_"

"It's an eye for an eye," Shikamaru corrects monotonously.

His body hurts when he sits down on the grass instead. The ground is moist and slippery under him. He stares up at the clouds. The sky is empty, except for stars. There's no trace of him left, except the head.

"_Who the fuck cares __about proverbs__?_" it barks now.

"Want to know what I did with your body?" Shikamaru asks slowly, his mouth ashen.

"_You burned it? You slashed it?_" it cackles.

"I threw back of it in the river and the other part... I let the crows and deers eat it. It's fertilizer in the forest now."

"_You think you can hurt me with that weak ass trash talk? I killed your precious teacher, you fucking teacher's pet. You can't hurt me, I destroyed you. __I'm not dead. You're dead._"

Shikamaru breathes in ashes and smoke, a machete digging in his neck with each intake. Since he killed Hidan, the blade has been lodged between cartilages. He_ is_ dying, the head is right.

Asuma. Sakura. _Him. HIM. HIM!_ All gone.

Shikamaru stares harder at the sky, soulless, boundless.

"_WE__'__RE DEAD, GET IT!?_"the head shrills.

Above, the stars laugh along with the head, taunting him.

_You're dead_, they spell across the heavens, winking in and out of existence, and he still thinks of the clouds.

The head spits soil and rocks as it cackles.

"_No come-back, not-so-smart-pants, huh?_"

"Even if she could, she wouldn't have killed you with a punch," he mumbles, and he lies down on the grass, staring up as he used to. "It had to be me. I was the most spiteful, the angriest... Ino and Chouji, they wouldn't have..."

"_Bla bla bla!_" the head mocks.

"It's 2:19am," he says to himself.

His cigarette is burnt to its tip.

Sakura is gone.

Isn't it what he wanted? For her to give up on him, on them. Isn't it what he prayed and prayed for? For more ruins, more chaos, more destruction, so he couldn't be a coward and go back and make excuses.

He's guilty.

This is his penance.

"Time's up," Shikamaru mutters and sits up with difficulty.

He grabs the shovel, his head spins.

Above and below, a cacophony explodes. The stars' laughter stretches, and Hidan shouts obscenities.

"Shut up!" Shikamaru growls.

The roasted smell of the turning soil overwhelms him, humid, clinging to the back of his throat.

The shovel sinks in the earth.

The alcohol drips, sinks in the earth.

Shikamaru is barely afloat, in the back of his mind, in the past, in the present.

He still wants to flee.

Baring his teeth, Shikamaru digs deeper, even if he can hear the steps clearly. Branches howled, leaves rustle pulled by strings of shadows. A tree shudders, rock spills and rolls toward the clearing.

He freezes.

"So, this is where it is?" Sakura mutters from behind him.

"What are you doing here?" Shikamaru hisses angrily.

He looks up and there are no sirens, no Sasori walking slowly up to him.

It's her and her pale eyes gleaming in the darkness and her pink hair held back by her hand.

Shikamaru angrily sticks the shovel in the ground, his hands finding his hips.

He grunts, and Sakura hesitates, holding one of her arm in front of her, a nervous tic she never outgrew.

"Somehow, somewhere you still care and it's... It's difficult to understand what happened to us."

Shakily, he feels his pockets, searching for his cigarettes.

"Go away, Sasori is about to show up."

"I know."

On his third try, he manages to light his cigarette.

"You smoke your life away," she whispers sadly.

"You're inside my head," Shikamaru laughs crudely, and his laughter matches the one of the head, crooked and twisted, and utterly lost. Dead. Destroyed. "You're just one more regret."

Sakura sits on the edge of the hole, carefully lying her hands on top of her laps. She squints at the darkness wondering for the first time what he sees in death, what he hears in it, and why can't her voice pierce through?

"You could've had justice any other way," she says.

He thinks if it truly was her, she would have shouted it, she would have punched the earth and pointed at the bones below: "See! This is what you invited into our bed, into our home. This is what destroyed us. And it ends now."

He blinks slowly, panting, retching, she's holding up a hand toward the hole, and she says it quietly: "This is what you invited into our bed, into our home. This is what destroyed us. And it ends now. I'm making sure you aren't running away now."

The head is silent below him.

"You aren't real," he snaps, cold sweat drenching his shirt. "I know it's the end, so you know it's the fucking end." Gesturing wildly, he makes to grab the shovel.

She stops him, one hand over his. He stares at their joined hands, then at her pale face. Achingly slowly, she presses his hand to her cheek.

"I'm here," Sakura says, rubbing his knuckles. "Until the end."

He freezes, feeling her warmth, her heartbeat, the softness of her hand, the emptiness around her ring finger.

Their ending is betrayal.

He tears himself away from her, shaking his head.

His heart pounds.

She is an eclipse in the night, watching him, pale and blurry and swaying.

Shikamaru takes another step away from her and grabs the bottle. Her gaze follows him, haunting.

He tells her: "Don't you see, you need to leave? Tomorrow, I could betray you," and he drinks.

The whisky drips between the cracks of the bottle, down his arm and shirt.

"I know where you hide... I know about your associates..." He drinks more, swallowed in the darkest pit of his mind.

She stands frozen on the edge of the hole, watching him.

He talks fast, his cheeks sleek with tears.

"I know you can't be killed when that seal is awoken, but you also need time to regenerate. It's fucking troublesome how you heal others before you heal yourself." He sneers at her. "WHY ARE YOU HERE?"

He stumbles toward her.

The bottle hits her hipbone, splashes down her thighs when he reaches for her.

He shudders. She's still solid,_ solid, _warm, _warm_. She echoes his touch. He presses her harder against him. She has always been the strongest of the two.

"Tomorrow, I'll betray you again," he slurs against her skin.

The stub of his unshaven cheeks and chin rubs her raw.

"I thought you would run," Sakura whispers.

With her strength, she could break him more than he is already broken. She inhales slowly, her palms rising slowly to his back, to touch him. For once, he lets her exist. She adjusts her head, so her chin rests more comfortably on his shoulder.

"Shika..."

"Don't be troublesome," he grumbles. "Sasori is coming."

"Tell me you miss me," Sakura orders silently.

"I want you safe," he laughs quietly, and his mouth closes around her earlobe, teeth grazing it.

He pauses, then he hungrily kisses her neck.

Sakura slaps him like a woman without her strength would. Like he hurt her. Like he could.

Shikamaru tumbles back, nearly tripping on the shovel.

He holds his cheek, his eyes wild, his breath sweet and heavy with alcohol.

"I'll wait with you," she says quietly, and she heals his cheek, her face hard.

"Tomorrow, betray me," he pleads, and he grips her.

"Today is tomorrow, Shika. It's 2:31 am."

He shakes her, his face contorted.

In pleasure.

In agony.

He's always in agony.

"Sasori is coming," she adds even if she doesn't need to.

The shrill of police sirens explode around them, drawing Sakura's paling face in red and blue.

"Goodbye, Shika," the wind carries, erases her words.

She slips away, her retreating steps masked by the head laughing one last time.

* * *

**THE END**

* * *

Thank you for your support!


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